Comcast to bring live TV, on-demand content to iPad

Downloading yesterday’s content from the iTunes Store, or streaming it with apps like Netflix or Hulu Plus is good. But adding live content into the mix would be great, which is exactly what Comcast aims to deliver.

The national TV, Internet, and phone provider has announced that it plans to offer live TV streaming and nearly 3000 hours of content from its On Demand services to the iPad. All this content will arrive in a few weeks, as an update to Comcast’s universal Xfinity TV app for iOS, as well as for Android devices sometime later this year.

The feature will be called “Play Now,” though, for the time being, Comcast isn’t offering any details on exactly what programming will be made available beyond “live news, movies, and hit TV shows.” It also doesn’t specify whether content will stream over 3G or only Wi-Fi. Other similar apps, such as SlingPlayer Mobile, had their 3G wings snipped when they first debuted, but most grew them back in later updates.

Additional features planned for future Xfinity TV app releases include social network integration, so you can share links to what you’re watching with friends. Assuming you trust your friends’s taste in movies and TV, a MyTV feature will also let you send and receive personal content recommendations.

You will need to be a Comcast TV subscriber in order to stream live and on-demand content with the Xfinity TV app, which itself is free. As for when this big update arrives, we’ll let you know as soon as we see it.